Translator's Note: The Abitur, or Abi is the final school examination in Germany.
Your grade in the Abitur decides what sort of job you can go for, or whether you
can go on to university and if so, what courses you may study. Before you can
sit the final Abitur exam, it is necessary to have passes in your 3 Klausur, your
class projects.

Did you pass your Abitur?, if not then you can have another go at it here, and if you
did, then you can use this as a chance to improve your grades a bit in retrospect.

Contents

92 Playing cards

30 plastic chips (stress points)

1 scoring sheet

1 ten-sided die

1 set of rules.

The Playing Cards

Scoring Cards

These cards have scores on them from -5 to +5. These points are collected to pass, or fail, your exams. Two cards have additional values. the +4 card, "Hard Learning", requires you to take two stress points when you play it. the -4 card, "Girl Friend" allows you to discard a stress point when it is played.

MamaPapa

Playing this card enables you to nullify one minus card. When played it must immediately be added to an already-played minus card. The MamaPapa card may not be transferred later to another, worse minus card . If the player has no minus cards in front of them when it is played, then the MamaPapa card is useless.

Cheating

(Abspicken, Gucki luggi), Goggle eyes. The player playing the card may, but need not, cheat, by peeking at and copying an answer, written by his left or right hand neighbour. To do this he announces which answer, (plus card), he intends to copy. Then he rolls the ten sided die. If the die roll is equal to or lower than the number on the chosen card, then he gets caught.

If caught cheating in a Class project, (Klausur), the player is warned and loses all points gained so far in that round, they can then play on as normal. If they are caught again in the same Klausur then they fail, and get no points for the project.

If they are caught cheating in the final Abitur exam, then they are immediately ejected from the game with no second chance.

If the die roll is greater than the value of the card, then the player has successfully cheated, and adds the number of points gained to his total score for that round. (The value can simply be written in the box for that exam, and added to the final score).

Mantakarte (Oops!)

This card allows the player to replace all the cards in their hand, or to force another player to do the same. The player playing the card decides whether to:

a) Play it on themselves, in which case they must hand in all their cards including the Oops card, and draws a new hand from the deck, the player may now play another card from their hand in the normal way.

or

b) play it on someone else. The chosen player must hand in their hand of cards and draw a new hand. In this case the player playing the card gets no further turn and play passes to the player to their left.

In both cases, the Manta card may only be played where the affected player has not yet played a card in that round. If the affected player, either the player playing the card on themselves, or their "victim", has already received cards in that round, then the Manta card may not be played.

Meditation

Playing this card allows the player to return one stress point to the box.

How to pass your Abitur

Each player first takes part in three Class projects, (Klausur). They must pass at least two of these three projects, in order to be allowed to sit the final Abitur exam. To pass a Klausur, they must gain at least 5 points. All points from the three Klausur are then added together, and then added to the points gained in the Abitur exam itself, which count double. The total points so gained give a Abi grade (Note) as shown in the table at the end of the rules. The player with the best Abi grade wins the game.

The Abitur Exam

The final Abitur exam is slightly different to the preceeding Klausur projects. As well as the minimum pass grade of 5 points, there is also the need to prove your knowledge of at least 3 different subjects. In order to demonstrate this breadth of knowledge, the Abitur exam score must involve at least 3 different types of plus card. It is easy to see how many different plus cards you have collected, since they are printed in different colours.

Preparation

The following number of cards are dealt to each player, depending on the number of players in the game.

4-5 players

7 cards

6-7 players

6 cards

8+ players

5 cards

Course of Play

Before play starts, each player has the chance to improve their hand by discarding up to three cards, and replacing them from the face-down deck. But each card so changed must be paid for, by taking one stress chip. Then the players choose a player to start the round. This player plays a card, either in front of themselves or in front of another player. Play proceeds in a clockwise direction until all players have laid a card. Now the player to the left of the previous starting player takes over and leads the first card of the next round. No player may receive more than one card per round. It is important to separate the cards played in the current round, from those played in previous rounds, so as to make it easy to see who has received a card in the current round. At the end of each round the cards played can be added to those already on the table. Once all cards in hand have been played, the players replenish their hands up to the original level.

Following Suit

If a player plays a minus card, any other player still to play in that round must "follow suit" by playing the same minus card if they have it.

Handing in class projects

As soon as a player has received a card during the current round, they may choose to hand in their class project (Klausur). This means that they get their result for that project there and then without any chance to improve, or have it disimproved.

All minus cards which can be ignored due to MamaPapa cards are laid to one side.

All remaining plus and minus cards are added together .

Any points gained by successful cheating (Abspicken) are added.

The total scored may not exceed 15. Any points in excess of 15 are ignored.

The total scored is written down in the appropriate space on the score pad. The player's cards are shuffled back into the pack. The other players carry on. It is not possible to cheat by looking at the answers of players who have already handed in their project. The "neighbouring player" in cheating terms becomes the next player in that direction who is still playing.

Play continues until the end of the round in which the penultimate player hands in his project. At the end of that round all projects must be handed in and points totalled even if they do not result in a pass.

Once all points scored for the first project have been recorded, a new hand is dealt to each player and play continues as beforeUntil all three projects have been completed.

Stress Points

After each of the three projects, every player must roll a die to see if the stress involved has led them to take a pill. If the die roll is less than or equal to the number of stress chips in front of the player then the stress has been too much, and the player has to take a pill. The player notes a 1 in their Pill, (Pillen), box on the score sheet. The player keeps the stress chips that they have acquired. After the second Klausur, the stress test is carried out again, using all stress chips collected, including those from the first round if they have not been discarded with meditation or girlfriend cards, and again after the third Klausur. There are no stress chips during the Abitur exam it's far too late then!

The Pills

Each pill taken reduces the points gained in the final Abitur exam by one. Example, Player A has got 12 points in his Abitur exam. But they failed one stress test beforehand, and so took one pill. Their score for the final exam is therefore 12-1=11. The points gained are then doubled, so 11*2=22 and the points achieved in the final exam total 22.

Special Points

All cards work in exactly the same way whether they are played on the player themselves or on other players. So a fellow player who receives a MamaPapa card can use it to nullify one minus card. A cheating card (Abspicken), gives the player the choice to cheat or not as they will. If the player chooses to cheat then they may also choose what risk to take, ie which level of plus card they wish to look at.

Meditation cards always allow a stress chip to be discarded if the player has one.

Manta cards (Oops!), force the player that receives it to swap their hand, as soon as it is their turn.

The "Hard Learning" +4 card forces the player affected to pick up 2 stress chips. The "Girlfriend", -4 card allows the affected player to discard one stress chip. This must be discarded immediately, the card's effect may not be stored for later use.

If a "Girlfriend" card is later nullified by the play of a MamaPapa card, the discarded stress chip is not affected, ie ned not be returned to the player.

Early Elimination

A Class project, (Klausur), can only be passed with a score of +5 or more. If the player fails to score sufficiently, or is caught cheating twice within one class project, then they fail the project. If a player fails in two of the three projects then they are out of the game and may not take part in the final Abi exam. Maybe the winner of the game will give them some help before the next one. Anyone failing to gain 5 points in the final exam, or who gets caught cheating in the final exam, is removed from the game in the same way.

Maximum points

The maximum point score in a project (Klausur), or in the final Abitur exam, is 15. Any extra points scored are ignored. The effects of a pill are on this maximum score. So, if a player has taken a pill before the final exam, then their score may only reach 14, even if they manage to accumulate more than 15 points in the exam. Taking a pill means that you can never score maximum points in the final exam. Likewise a score of 6 points is fatal if the player has already taken two pills.

Scoring

The scores for the three projects (Klausur) are added together.

The points gained in the final Abitur exam are doubled (after reductions for pills taken.)